Nirvana | The Che Underground

Here’s a topic that could spin in a few different directions: Many musicians from our circle have made wonderful sounds since our 1980s salad days. … Considerably fewer have made some money in the process. … But I don’t believe any of us hit the commercial jackpot in the music industry.

The wheels of that industry continued to turn, however, and musicians of our approximate age and subcultural pedigree did make it big in the late ’80s and early ’90s. (To start the ball rolling, I’ll throw out three names from our native time zone: Nirvana, Sublime and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

I know these big, commercial acts traveled many miles from our DIY roots (and from most of our musical discussions here). But that’s the point: What do you consider musical success, and do you hear echoes of our own aspirations in these huge revenue engines of decades past?

(Roving correspondent/photographer Kristen Tobiason revisits the scenes of our youth. Today, Off the Record’s original location is roadkill.)

It takes my breath away that the candy store of my youth has been diminished to something as unsavory as a used-tire store. Off the Record has had a history, migrating from its origin on 6130 El Cajon Blvd. to the heart of the Hillcrest shopping district, where a much larger store thrived in the ’90s and early 21st century with San Diego’s indie rock scene and the DJ phemenon. The in-store concerts were memorable and yielded huge turnouts for bands such as The Misfits, Husker Du, Mudhoney and Nirvana. (Check out Nirvana at OTR in October 1991.)

After the original owner Phil Galloway sold the store, it downsized its stock considerably and in 2005 moved to a small storefront on University Avenue in North Park. The end of an era: Music stores can’t compete nowadays with the instant accessibility of MP3s and shareware. Record stores are reserved for the discriminating vinyl collectors who will never sell out completely to technology, no matter how clever those gizmos are!

Records will always be cooler.